Founded in 1987 by Daniel Johnson, the Texas Early Music Project is dedicated to preserving and advancing the art of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, and early Classical music through performance, recordings, and educational outreach.

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There’s cauld Kail in Aberdeen

I reckon that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s a less good thing. Anyway, it’s a fun song that Jeffrey Jones-Ragona will be singing in our upcoming Celtic Fancies concert (see details below). There are lots of fun pieces, ne’er you fear, to balance out the sad love songs, the happy love songs, the longing love songs, the. . .well, you get the idea. Some of the most romantic songs express love for specific places in Scotland, like The Birks of Invermay, The Braes o’ Ballochmyle,Etrick Banks and, of course, The Broom of Cowdenknows. . .well, there’s quite of variety of aspects of love mixed in that one song alone.

Peter Walker (NY) will be featured on a variety of Scottish smallpipes—think of them as chamber bagpipes, ‘saft and sweet’—and will be featured, along with Cayla Cardiff and Ryland Angel, in the Game of Thrones portion of the concert, based on an historical event in 1630: murder, deception, revenge. Frennet Hall. Amazing! And you don’t need HBO to catch it! Jenifer Thyssen sings a few of Robert Burns’ best poems, Jenny Houghton sings The Broom, David Lopez will warm your heart with his rendition of The Birks…, and all 5 guys (Jeffrey, David, Peter, Ryland, and Danny) will make you laugh with The Pleugh Song, an amazing, epic, 16th-century advertisement for. . .wait for it. . .plows!

Click on the CD images below to listen to more audio teasers!

Besides Peter Walker on pipes, we will feature always-amazing Peter Maund on percussion, Therese Honey and Elaine Barber on harps, and our Ballad Band (see below) with reels, strathspeys, and more! “We are a band compleatly fitted to be joyly!”

“We’ll please ourselves with mutual Charms, as we did lang syne.” Ok, yes, it’s an earlier Auld lang syne than the one that we all sing without really knowing…

Celtic music is very popular, beautiful, and exciting in the 21st century. But what was it like in earlier periods, 200-500 years ago? Well, it was popular, beautiful, and exciting! Even the English held the Scottish ballads in high esteem and our own Ben Franklin adored these songs and considered them the height of great art. TEMP enjoys presenting this repertoire because of its musical challenges and rewards and because of its musical link to another time and place—one that is still vibrantly alive in many ways.